Pakistan Software Export Board has led a multi-stakeholder collaboration to establish the foundation for Pakistan’s first structured Information Technology Industry Census, bringing together the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Ignite National Technology Fund, P@SHA, and the Pakistan Freelancers Association to consolidate verified ecosystem data at a national scale for the first time. The initiative marks a significant milestone in Pakistan’s efforts to build a data-driven understanding of its own digital economy, which has historically lacked the kind of structured, verified baseline data that would allow policymakers, investors, and industry leaders to make well-informed decisions about the sector’s development.
The census foundation has already drawn together substantial preliminary data. Over 1.5 million freelancers, including information technology and remote workers, have been identified as part of the baseline, alongside 57,600 entities comprising companies, call centers, and startups that are now forming the foundation of what the census framework will map and analyze. The involvement of SECP brings registered corporate entity data into the picture, while PAFLA’s participation ensures that the country’s large and often undercounted freelance workforce is represented alongside formally incorporated businesses. P@SHA’s contribution connects the census to the organized information technology industry, and Ignite National Technology Fund adds a link to the startup and innovation funding ecosystem, together creating a more complete cross-sectoral picture of Pakistan’s technology economy than any single institution could produce on its own.
The Pakistan Software Export Board has described the census foundation as a first-of-its-kind national effort that will enable the development of a structured IT Industry Census framework, with the goal of supporting smarter and more evidence-based decisions for Pakistan’s digital growth going forward. This initiative complements the separately announced joint effort between the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics to conduct a broader national information technology census covering freelancers, call center workers, and other digital economy participants, suggesting that multiple parallel efforts are now converging around the shared recognition that Pakistan’s technology sector urgently needs reliable, structured data to underpin its next phase of growth. The census foundation established by PSEB is being positioned as the verified ecosystem baseline on which that broader framework will be built.
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